Goober Bars

In the United Kingdom, peanut butter gets a bad rap. If you’ve ever tasted British peanut butter, you’d know why. It comes in teeny tiny jars and it’s a dry, pasty smush of who knows what. So it’s no real mystery why the jars are kept small. Like anything in the kitchen, you put bad stuff in, you get bad stuff out. In London, we can only get the major brands, which are what we use by default. Oddly enough, we can also get Goober, that ungodly squirt of peanut butter and jelly in a jar. One day we told a customer about an item with peanut butter, tolerated the predictable grimace, looked over their shoulder, saw the Goober sitting on the shelf, and the light bulb went off. Besides, who doesn’t like a silly name for something so delicious?

There are plenty of fantastic peanut butters back home. Any would work for this recipe. Those with chocolate, those with spice, those with honey, etc. Natural peanut butter works, too, but drain off some oil before plopping it into the mixing bowl. Smooth? Crunchy? Strawberry? Grape? Four-berry? If you’re lucky, you’ll use jam from scratch. Totally up to you. Hell, we’ve used a jar of Goober itself and that even works.–David Muniz and David Lesniak

LC Goober Note

“Oh. Dear. God.” is right. This recipe, from David’s favorite bakery in London, essentially remakes a PB&J as peanut butter blondies with a layer of jam smack in the middle. Makes us feel like a kid again.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (176°C). Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish or roasting pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Coat the sides of the dish with flour and tap out any excess.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, peanut butter, and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, followed by the vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture just until combined. The dough will be quite stiff.

4. Using your fingertips, gently press about 2/3 of the dough into the dish. Schmear the jam in a thin layer over the dough, and then crumble or dollop the remaining dough on top of the jam. Sprinkle the top with the peanuts, gently pressing them into the dough so they don’t fall off later.

5. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the goober is golden on top. Cool completely in the pan before cutting into 3-inch squares.